Bloom: Becoming Multidimensional

By Marva Easterly

Whod a thunk it? Becoming a spiritual channel, a medium, an intuitive, and a past life regression facilitator were never on my list of goals to achieve. And yet I did. My story of evolving from normal to multidimensional is one of learning about expanding consciousness, unconditional love, and otherworldly possibilities. It is also a tale of having to confront death, near death, loss, and betrayal while keeping a sense of humor. Discovering that there is a presence, a spirit, a soul, a higher consciousness within each of us that is eternal and all knowing changed me. I went looking for the meaning of death and found immortality. Life is constantly full of surprises.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Sep 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452519074

Marva Easterly

Marva Easterly MA is on a life-long spiritual journey of discovery and personal growth. She is a daughter, sister, mother, wife, widow, teacher, and explorer of the inner life. She is also a Spiritual Channel, a Medium, a Past Life Regression Facilitator, and a Gaiadon Heart Master. Ms Easterly is a public speaker who has also appeared on local radio and TV. Her goal is to help others awaken to higher dimensional reality.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

CHANGING DIRECTIONS

T he sun was shining and the air was that sharp, crisp, blue of a summer morn in the northern Rockies. The birds were singing, sprinklers hissing, and children shouting as they played next door. All felt right in the world. It was a July morning in 1976 and a whole day of possibilities beckoned. I was with several friends in my apartment. We had just walked back from breakfast at a favorite restaurant and were smoking a joint while deciding what to do for the rest of the day. We had been debating whether to float the Madison River or to hike in the Bridger Mountains. We were young and filled with energy and exuberance; we were invincible. And then my phone rang. My reality fragmented with that phone call. Nothing would ever be the same again. The unexpected news I received triggered the beginning of my transformation.

My father called to tell me that my mother had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and that according to the neurologist, had just six months to live. She was only fifty-nine. So little was known about Alzheimer’s in those days and the medical profession was nearly as ignorant as the rest of us. We could hardly even pronounce the name, let alone understand the disease. The phrase early onset had not yet been coined. All we knew was that my mother had just been given her death sentence; she was slowly losing her mind and that life, as it had been, was no more. I was incapable of processing that information. I was confused and disoriented and seemed to be dwelling in nightmare rather than reality. I felt emotionally bludgeoned.

I adored my mother and the thought of her death was incomprehensible. I didn’t understand and could only cry. It felt like my known world was collapsing. And it was, in many ways. For a family who believed that all problems had solutions which could be found through rational, analytical thought the death of the mind was an unimagined horror. The reality of what transpired over the next eight years changed us all. We grew, we expanded, and we stretched—our hearts, our minds, and our commitments. My brother and his family, my sister and her family, my father, and I began our separate journeys to try to understand what the future might bring and how Alzheimer’s would affect us all. Initially, we had no idea what to do. We were stunned, frozen in place like a deer in headlights, and incapable of action.

I had been exposed to the concept of death since early childhood. My multi-generational clan of extended relatives lived just a few hours away and we attended family funerals with some regularity. I was not, however, emotionally attached to those elders who died and so was basically unaffected. As the years passed, when other younger relatives and friends died, I experienced grief and sorrow, but quickly returned to my everyday life. I was sad, but not greatly changed. Not until my mother’s diagnosis was I totally and completely emotionally incapacitated by the specter of death. Her dying was all I could think about. Life didn’t make sense anymore and I needed some sort of resolution. At that time I was teaching at a university in Montana and knew someone in the sociology department who was giving a course on multi-cultural perceptions of death. It felt important for me to be more informed about the whole concept of death and dying, so I asked for and he gave me a reading list. I thought that I would be able to read my way into understanding. I thought that if I could understand death, my mother’s dying would be easier. Thus began my attempt to try to make sense of the inexplicable. Unknowingly, I was beginning my life’s evolutionary journey.

Decades have passed since that initial diagnosis. The grief and sorrow, pain and despair, frustration and anger were eventually transmuted into acceptance and love. It was a long and painful journey for my family of origin and me. We emerged stronger, more resilient, and also more connected to one another. We shared and participated in Mom’s dying as a loving, supportive family. Our united focus, our common purpose, was to help make her dying as gentle as possible for all of us. We learned about giving unconditionally. We learned about loving without expectation. The memories of those years remain and can be easily recalled. This is not, however, the story of one woman’s death and dying, but rather the story of what happened because of her death and dying. It is the story of another woman’s spiritual awakening. It is the story of evolving from one kind of human being into another. It is my story.

My directed reading led me to the work of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who was the foremost authority on death and dying at that time. Her books became my new friends. She was a psychiatrist whose work with dying children led her to explore new ways of understanding death and to consider the idea of the continuity of life. As her dying patients began to experience memories of their past lives and to speak about them, she recorded her observations. I devoured her written work and began to entertain radical new ideas, ideas that did not fit easily into my paradigm of a rational/logical universe. For instance, the concept of life after death seemed ridiculous. Anyone believing in life after death had to be a couple of bubbles off plumb, or so I thought at the time. And yet, here was a respected professional, a doctor, a scientist, writing about the past life recall of dying children. And what the heck was past life recall? Apparently, the children she worked with, as they lay dying, began to experience memories of other lifetimes. It happened so often that Kübler-Ross began to investigate the phenomena as truth. Her discoveries were astounding, as I understood them.

Thus, Kubler-Ross’s seminal work helped to open doorways to other possibilities in my mind. Rather than suspend belief about what initially seemed to be ludicrous, I began to entertain the idea that maybe there was some truth in her findings. If so, my world view would need some major adjustments. I didn’t have a strong set of religious or spiritual beliefs at that time. Although loosely reared in the Christian traditions of middle class America, I was more attracted to the belief systems of ancient cultures. As a child and as an adult, the histories of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were far more interesting to me than Christianity. Being treated as an inferior religious minority because my family did not belong to the dominant Christian majority in my home town had not endeared me to that particular belief system. Christian theory and practice were worlds apart in my small community. Yet the stories of Greek Mythology, read to me as a child by my father, had always intrigued me and they didn’t seem too far removed from the new ways of thinking based on nonphysical reality that I was beginning to explore. But past lives? The idea, that we live more than once, seemed preposterous. And yet?

What if the Kübler-Ross research was correct and we do have access to past life recall? And if we can remember past lives, such recall must mean that we live many times. That presupposes that we reincarnate. And if we do, how many times? And where and why and when? I had never considered reincarnation. It was a very new and strange idea for me. As I continued my journey through many books, I was drawn to Eastern religions and their concepts of the continuity of life, lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. This was just such a different way of thinking. I was amazed and awed at the new worlds of possible reality that were opening to me. I was skeptical, but intrigued. It felt a bit like playing with fire; I didn’t want to get too close and risk burning. I was still teaching at the time and researching the historical portion of an Environmental Impact Statement, so had both rational feet on the ground, so to speak. But by the time my teaching contract ended two years later, my interests had changed. Getting a Ph.D. could wait. My heart called me home.

I decided to move back to the Seattle area to be an active part of my mother’s journey. My siblings were established professionals with families of their own and so were not able to move with the same ease. My father had decided that he would become my mother’s principal caretaker when the time came and that, if possible, she would die in their home, as he had promised her. He eventually retired early in order to be there for her. She was ok on her own for the first couple of years and I was able to enjoy her, as almost normal. I deemed it important that I spend as much time with her as possible. My father and I became involved in helping to create local Alzheimer’s disease support groups, new phenomena, which allowed us to share with others facing the same or similar dilemmas. How does one care for a mentally deteriorating loved one? We learned together through trial and error—with laughter and tears.

While experiencing my mother’s ongoing mental deterioration, I continued in my personal study of death and the death of the mind. At this point I was open to many new ideas and began to explore even the most seemingly outrageous concepts. I didn’t want to miss any information that might allow me to understand why this was happening and if there was anything that could be done to stop it. My search was moving beyond Alzheimer’s and the death of the mind to include an investigation of mental attributes beyond the intellect. If we only, as some experts purport, use only five to ten percent of our brains, what was happening in the other ninety to ninety-five per cent? I was reading everything I could get my hands on in the late ’70s about death, life after death, and expanded consciousness. What if only the body dies and the mind/consciousness goes on and on and on? What if? I was intrigued and felt compelled to know more.

By this time I was developing an interest in the paranormal, as well. I found the recently published book, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, to be absolutely fascinating. People with unusual mental abilities were interesting to read about. And then I had my first paranormal experience. A new friend offered to introduce me to a psychometrist, one who sees information by touching an object belonging to the person in question. I was excited and couldn’t contain my enthusiasm. I gave the man a ring I had worn for many years. He held it with eyes closed and his expression changed. When he opened his eyes and looked at me, I could see his discomfort. He obviously did not want to tell me what he had seen. I pleaded and he relented. He said that he saw a body on a gurney in a morgue—that someone very close to me was dying or had died. I felt a sense of relief. It was my mother of course. I thanked him and felt quite excited about the experience. Maybe there really was validity to be found in the paranormal. The next day I received a phone call informing me that my best friend in graduate school had committed suicide the day before. So, not my mother after all. I was dumbfounded and greatly saddened.

Little by little and bit by bit, I began to have my own simple experiences, or at least was starting to become aware of unusual occurrences. I had come to believe that some people are born with special abilities, but that perhaps all of us could begin to use more of our conscious and subconscious minds. Or so I hoped. I began to train myself to be more aware of my thoughts, actions, and the world around me. I began to note unusual experiences. For example, I was hiking with friends on a May day and we separated for a bit of alone time. I sat on a rock in the sun and focused on the beauty of the surroundings. All of a sudden thoughts of my favorite grandmother came to mind. I could feel her loving presence in my imagination. It was a very sweet moment, as if she was actually with me. I then joined my friends and we continued our hike. Later that night at home I received a call from my father. His mother, my favorite grandmother, had died earlier in the day. Was it a coincidence that I had been thinking of her? I don’t think so. We didn’t believe her death to be imminent, so there was no logical reason for me to be thinking of her on my hike. In retrospect I believe her spirit or soul came to tell me good-bye. Over the decades I have developed the ability to communicate with the deceased and am visited when loved ones pass over. But in the beginning I couldn’t be sure if what I experienced was real or imagined.

I began to pay more attention to coincidences; looking for potential magic in each moment. I was developing a new kind of awareness. I was beginning to be entranced with the idea that there is more to life than what can be heard, seen, tasted, touched, felt, or thought. I did, however, have a full life and any seemingly extraordinary experiences were simply an aside, an oddity, a curiosity—interesting and fun, but not part of the fabric of my daily life. I was working full time, spending as much time as possible with my mother, meeting new people, and playing whenever the opportunity arose. I had varied interests and commitments. New experiences and new information have always called to me. Knowing what is on the other side of the mountain has always been of interest and important to my well-being. I have always been a seeker—wanting to know the why of things. I was also making plans to start a business of my own with backing from an investor. And then I fell in love.

We were introduced by a mutual friend and immediately began a dialogue that continued for the next seventeen years. Talk about magic—from the moment we met it felt like we had always known one another. He seemed so familiar and comfortable to be with and the physical attraction was magnetic. We reveled in one another’s company for a few months and then came a time of difficult decision making. He was offered and decided to accept a position two time zones away and our love affair became a long distance one. That worked for about a year and then it became obvious that we either had to commit to being together on a full time basis or end the relationship. Living separate lives, while trying to be a couple, was just too emotionally and physically exhausting. The constant traveling back and forth between Seattle and Austin was wrecking havoc in both of our lives. But what about my parents? I adored them both and how could I possibly leave them alone to continue the journey of Alzheimer’s without me? My heart was torn.

That remains one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make. By this time I had become instrumental in giving my dad respite time away from my mother. I would stay with her while he left for a few days of rest and relaxation. He would often leave town or stay with local friends, so he could be completely free of responsibilities. As her condition worsened, as her speech became more repetitious, and her abilities to do the simplest of things for herself lessened, he desperately needed time alone for himself.

My giving him a break from Mom was paramount to his mental and physical well-being. I had committed myself to participating in their journey and the idea of leaving didn’t feel honorable. It felt like I would be deserting them. But how could I say no to the love of my life? I had never met a man who made my heart sing like this one and was not willing to give him up. How could I choose?

I am fortunate to have an older brother, Mike, who stepped forward at this time and spoke his words of truth to me. He told me to go—to live my life and not give my happiness away in order to stay and take care of our aging parents. He reminded me that their lives were theirs to live and my life was mine to live. Staying would not honor them or me. I had been reared to be lovingly independent and that was who I must continue to be. They would not want me to sacrifice my life for theirs. Mike also reminded me that one of our great aunts, who had given up her personal goals to take care of her aging mother and then became the family caretaker for her older siblings, had become so bitter over the years. He didn’t want me to become another Aunt Mae. He also suggested that he, my older sister, and their families could begin to play a larger role in the care of our parents. And so another door of possibility opened.

My brother and his family had recently moved back to the U.S. from overseas and were only a four hour drive from Seattle. My sister and her family were an eight hour drive away. They both committed to spending more time with our folks; filling some of the gap so I could move. I could not change the course of my mother’s disease, but I could change the course of my life. So with understandable reluctance and a joyous heart, I decided to go. Other family members and friends who lived locally committed to becoming part of my parents’ respite care team. When the time came to say good-bye, tears of sorrow wouldn’t stop flowing. I hated to leave them. I loved them so. I knew that I would be back often to stay and help in any way they needed, but I would no longer be across town. The parting was so sad for all three of us. We had shared so much in the four years I had lived near them. Life is like that sometimes—sorrowful. Leaving dying loved ones is never easy. The year was 1981.

CHAPTER 2

LOVE AND ADVENTURE

A nd so I started another chapter of my life with the man I adored and his ten year old son. This was a package deal and I was thrilled with the idea. My generation married early, but I was an exception. I was thirty-three and not married, while most of my peers were married long before thirty. I truly thought that I had missed my chance for marriage and children. And yet—here was an equally wonderful situation. From adventurous single woman, I became an adventurous partner and step mom. This was a very different lifestyle than anything I had previously experienced and I thrived. I had dreamed of having a son and here was my opportunity to share the energy of a delightful boy. Todd was bright and so much fun to play with. Lucky me. So not only did I get to be with the man I loved and his adorable son, but this man was wide open to alternative realities. Talk about a match made in heaven! I credit him with introducing me to some of the new concepts that became my life’s passion.

Before I moved to join him Ron, who had become the CEO of a resort development company, called to tell me about a group that had come to stay at the resort for a weekend of channeling by an entity known as Dr. Duran. I had not heard the term before and didn’t really understand what he was talking about. He explained. I found the idea incredulous, when hearing what channeling meant. A channel was supposedly someone who allowed beings without bodies to use his or hers. The idea of a non corporeal being speaking through someone else’s physical body sounded not only impossible, but really bizarre. I just KNEW that Ron and I were going to have some exciting times together. He was very open minded about metaphysical possibilities—more so than I was at the time. He had been exposed to metaphysical Christianity as a child and had a different perspective. I was eager to learn.

Ron had been reared in L.A. by a mother who studied with Ernest Holms in the 1930s. Holms is given credit for creating Science of Mind or Religious Science, part of the New Thought branch of Christianity. I didn’t know much about this belief system, but did know that it went beyond anything I had experienced as Christianity. I am not, however, one who readily accepts others’ belief systems, so did not investigate Science of Mind tenets. Ron was not a practitioner, just a spiritually open minded soul. And I was not interested in what I perceived as organized religion in any form. I had grown up as a religious minority and experienced the disregard and ostracism that comes with not sharing the majority’s world view. I wanted no part of what I believed to be closed systems of thought. Ironically, my mind was as closed as I believed formal religions to be!

So there I was, sharing home and heart with Ron and his son, exploring our new state’s attributes, and adjusting to the rhythms of three. It was a time of great joy and laughter. In my short time in Texas I was learning that there is natural beauty everywhere and that although people might sound different, many have open hearts and open minds. I was also learning that different is not necessarily wrong. I was seemingly happy, but just below the surface, my heart hurt. There was an underlying sadness that no amount of love and attention could dispel. I felt wrapped in grief for my mother. Had Mom been healthy, the longing to be with and assist my parents would not have existed. But it did. In his effort to help me build a new community, Ron introduced me to the people he thought I would enjoy—people he had met while we were living apart. The most important one was Nadia.

She was a woman just a few years older than me, who had lived in Texas for a decade. She was the mother of two sons, an artist, a businesswoman, and most importantly, the daughter of a man in Washington, D.C. who had Alzheimer’s. We could talk; heart to heart. She was a godsend and we got to know and trust one another. We became friends and were able to share our feelings of grief and loss as kindred spirits. She became my support system. She understood my pain. I hadn’t known her for too many months before she made a suggestion, which seemed to be completely preposterous. She suggested that I make an appointment with Bette Taylor. She insisted that Bette could help me with my grief. Bette just happened to be a psychic. Ha.

Right. Sure. And would you like me to grow a third leg, as well? That had to have been one of the most ludicrous suggestions I had ever heard. In my opinion psychics were no more than fakes with crystal balls, often to be found at country fairs. Their job was to fleece the innocent! Yes, my mind was closed and I thought Nadia had lost hers. How could any rational person consider such a suggestion? And yet, as the weeks and months passed and my grieving didn’t lessen, I began to soften my rigid opposition to the idea of someone like Bette. Nadia insisted that Bette’s abilities were real and could offer me solace. Eventually I decided that I had nothing to lose and so made an appointment. This was in the early spring of 1982. That appointment irrevocably changed my life. When I walked through Bette’s door, I unknowingly walked into my future.

With some trepidation I parked in front of a simple middle class, suburban house. There were no bats or black cats in evidence, much to my great relief. I walked to the front door, rang the bell, and was quite surprised when a tall, middle aged, professionally dressed woman answered the door. Bette. She invited me in and took me to her small office, where I sat on a sofa while she explained a bit about what she did. She and her home seemed to be perfectly normal. At this point she knew only my name. She then closed her eyes and began to tell me what she was seeing with her inner vision, her mental pictures. I was completely dumbfounded. How was this possible? It was as if she knew me intimately and yet we had never met before. I was not frightened, but rather, intrigued. Stupefied might be a better word to explain my reaction to her visions. I had had no previous idea that such was possible and there were too many personal confirmations for me to doubt her. Her abilities were uncanny.

During the course of our session, she told me things about myself that no one else could have possibly known. And yet she, a complete stranger, did. Three decades later I still remember some of what she said and always will. One comment that caught me off guard was, You must be interested in ancient history because you have lived so much of it. Well, unknown to her and everyone else in Texas, I once had dreamed of becoming a classical archeologist. My passion for the ancient world had begun when I was still in elementary school. Only the thought of having to master ancient Latin and Greek had deterred me from that path. I chose to study ancient history instead. How could she possibly have had access to such information? Where did the information come from? Bette’s further inner visions and suggestions helped to lessen the sorrow of my mother’s impending death and allowed me to understand death differently; it no longer seemed quite so tragic. In our short time together my world view exploded into cosmic proportions. And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this particular psychic’s inner vision was real and that I wanted to learn to do what she did. My meeting Bette ignited a flame of curiosity within me that has yet to be extinguished. It felt like I had entered into a new universe, one of unlimited possibilities. Thirty years later, I know for a fact that it was so.

This was the beginning of such a heady time for me. Bette had given me an extensive reading list and I devoured nearly everything on it. Reading has always been one of my passions, so reading lists were like gifts to me. She also suggested that I take classes to learn how to expand my own mental abilities. Yes! She introduced me to Will, a Canadian biochemist of international renown, who worked closely with Jose Silva, the creator of what was then called Silva Mind Control. Mind expansion through scientific principles sounded like just the thing for me—learning how to work with and control aspects of one’s own mind. I took several of the Silva classes and started to use the concepts and techniques in my daily life. This was sort of like a non swimmer jumping into a pool with water wings. Having scientific explanations for expanding consciousness felt safe to my still dominantly analytical mind. I needed to know that there were respectable and responsible people involved in this new world of mine. And then I met Sidsel, a Norwegian Princess.

She wasn’t actually a princess, but was beautiful and wealthy enough to be one. We bonded readily and discovered that we shared a major interest, the paranormal. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. She had had many paranormal experiences and wanted to make a film about them. She asked me if I would be willing to do some extensive research for her and then write synopses of the books I read. Excuse me? Did someone just offer me my dream job? At that time reading and breathing were of equal importance to me, so you can imagine the thrill of this offer. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. And so I began to read and write. For the next six months I was exposed to what can only be described as totally outlandish concepts. Surely, some of these authors were on hallucinogenic drugs! I simply had to disband my belief system because what I was reading and writing about was, quite often, absurd. In light of what I know today, that information seems tame, but at the time it was cutting edge outrageous. Long after I finished the project for Sidsel, I continued to read everything metaphysical, paranormal,